Internet search company Yandex, often referred to as the Russian Google due to its popularity in countries that speak the language, has signed a contributor’s license agreement with its biggest competitor. Yet this has nothing to do with search: Yandex is simply now allowed to submit contributions to the Chromium project.

The change was first noted by open-source Chromium Evangelist François Beaufort, writing “I was really pleased to notice this morning that the Yandex Team was being added to the AUTHORS file of the Chromium Project next to big entities like Google, NVIDIA and Opera which also joined recently.” He points to the SVN authors list on the Chromium project as evidence of the change.

For those who don’t know, Yandex launched a WebKit-powered browser back in October 2012. As we noted at the time, the browser is based on the open-source Chromium code.

We also underlined this description from Yandex: “The Yandex browser platform has through a technological partnership with a key long term partner been expanded to incorporate Opera Software’s Turbo technology, which allows to boost the browser’s page loading capacity even with a slow connection.”

In other words, it makes complete sense for Yandex to show interest in getting publishing rights to the Chromium project. Not only is its browser based on the platform, but its close partner Opera is also on the Chromium bandwagon.

It’s worth noting that Yandex, like Opera, will soon be switching from WebKit to Blink due to its Chromium roots. That won’t impact most people, but for those that develop Russian-speaking websites, it’s an important upcoming change to prepare for. No Web developer in their right mind should ignore Blink.

Emil was a reporter for The Next Web between 2012 and 2014. Over the years, he has covered the tech industry for multiple publications, including Ars Technica, Neowin, TechSpot, ZDNet, and CNET. Stay in touch via Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.